The History of Texas: Missions and Missionaries

Mission San Jose, in San
Antonio

TEXAS,
as a missionary field, was not, in its early settlement, a place to be
desired. In some parts, where the precious metals abounded, and fortunes
were readily made, the worldly-minded herald of the cross could be
somewhat tempted; but, with this exception, it was a vast, unexplored
region, but thinly peopled by a strange race of natives, who were
ignorant, not, only of the moral code of Europe, but even of the rights
of property. As Christianity and civilization must necessarily flourish
together, the
Indians had to be civilized as well as converted. They were to be
taught to love God more than their hunting-grounds; to forgive their
enemies, and not to scalp them. These teachings were to be the result of
infinite patience, constant prayer, a living faith, an upright walk,
and, as God works through instrumentalities, a previous mental
cultivation. Who, then, was sufficient for these things? A new country
had been occupied. Her vast prairies and woodlands, beautifully blended,
lay smiling before the strangers. At that age, the missionary
operations, with the exception of the English colonies, were carried on
by the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans, the three principal orders
of preachers of the Roman catholic church. These orders, though deriving
authority alike from the papal see, were essentially different. The
Jesuits were polished, cheerful, and courtly; the Dominicans, as
preachers against heretics, were gloomy and fanatical. From the time of
St. Dominic, they found dangerous rivals in the Franciscans, with whom
they divided the honor of ruling church and state until 1640, when the
shrewd and learned followers of De Loyola superseded them in directing
the education and politics of the Old World.

The Franciscans

The
Franciscans are a religious order founded by St. Francis d'Assisi, in
1208, at Naples. The order was distinguished by absolute poverty and the
renunciation of worldly pleasures. Its original object was the care of
the spiritual interests of the people, so much neglected by the secular
clergy of that age. The founder prohibited his followers from possessing
any property, nor were they to make learning and the polite
accomplishments their study. The rule of the order, sanctioned by the
pope in 1210 and 1223, destined them to beg and to preach. Responsible
to no one but the pope, they had many privileges, and their numbers were
soon so increased, that they filled thousands of monasteries. The rules
of poverty became relaxed, and their convents produced many learned men.
The popes Nicholas IV., Alexander V., Sixtus IV. and V., and Clement
XIV., were from this order.

The Franciscans became divided into
different sects, yet had a common general. The Alcantarines, or those
who followed the reforms introduced by Peter of Alcantara, flourished in
Spain, and, with the conquerors of Mexico, many of them came over to
America, and founded missions and convents. Among others, the convents
of Quaretaro and Zacatecas, established early in the seventeenth
century, furnished the missionaries destined to introduce to the Native
Americans of Texas the knowledge of the true God. These fathers observed
strictly the rules laid down by their founder; they went with their feet
entirely bare; a coarse woollen frock, with a cord round the waist, to
which a rope with a knotted scourge was suspended, formed their common
dress. Their monastic vows prohibited them from holding either real or
personal property, and also from familiar intercourse with the other
sex, and required an entire compliance with the rules of the order and
the commands of the superior.

In Texas, in 1715, such men could well
keep their vows of poverty and self-denial. But they had before them a
work to be performed, which, without hope of future reward, and a strong
faith in heaven, none could have the heart to undertake. As beggars, the
Indians had nothing to give, and in this avocation far outstripped their
ghostly instructors. As preachers, they had almost insuperable
difficulties to meet and overcome. They had to learn the language of the
natives; to domesticate and civilize them; to teach them the nature of
property, its value, and the mode of acquiring it. But, what was most
important, the Indian was necessitated to unlearn all that he had
previously acquired. His wandering life must cease; he must henceforth
have a home, and a place of worship. His manitous, as numerous as
the objects around him, must all give place to the idea of one great
Manitou--the Creator. His passions must be subdued ; his habits,
manners, and his entire nature, changed. " Nothing is more difficult,"
says Father Marest, " than the conversion of these Indians; it is a
miracle of the Lord's mercy. It is necessary first to transform them
into men, and afterward to labor to make them Christians."

This work was undertaken in Texas by the
patient followers of St. Francis. They had not the liberty of the
Jesuits, in not being restrained by the formalities of a tedious
recitation of prayers, but, under all circumstances, at oft-recurring
times, were bound on their consciences to repeat them. It was an
important object to keep the Indians together long enough to make an
impression on their minds. But the Indian must be fed; his only means of
support was by fishing, and the chase; he knew no other. To maintain him
by agriculture, he must labor in the field. Upon such a basis, then,
were laid down the rules for the government and instruction of the red
man.

The establishments thus formed in Texas
were known as presidios, or missions. There was a mission at each
presidio; but many missions were without soldiers, at least in
any considerable numbers. Each presidio was entitled to a commandant,
and the necessary officers for a command of two hundred and fifty men;
though, from various circumstances, the number constantly varied, and
was generally less. The troops were inferior, badly clothed, idle, and
disorderly. The buildings were erected around a square, or plaza de
armas, and consisted of the church, dwellings for officers, friars,
and soldiers, with storehouses, prisons, etc. The size of the square
depended on the population, the strength of the force intended to be
stationed there, and also upon the extent of the district dependent on
the presidio. Huts were erected at a short distance from the principal
edifices, for the converted Indians. The unmarried of either sex were
placed in separate huts, and at night locked up by the friars, who
carried the keys. They encouraged chastity among the Indians, and
punished its violation by public or private whipping, as the offender
was a male or a female.

Missions and Presidios

Forts were erected near the presidios,
and sometimes the church was fortified. The civil and military authority
was united in the commandant, which, in some matters, was subordinate
and in others superior to the ecclesiastical power. The principal duty
of the military was to repel the invasion of the wild Indians, and to
suppress the rebellious spirit of the converts. The Indians were well
fed, clothed, and cared for; their labors were not heavy ; and, in these
particulars, they could not complain. But they were compelled to perform
certain religious ceremonies before they could understand anything of
their meaning. Sundry rules were laid down for their every motion, a
departure from which was severely punished. It was this tyranny over the
minds and bodies of the Indians that enfeebled and wasted them. They
were willing to forego the food and raiment of the missions, for the
sublime scenery of the vast prairies, the liberty of roaming unmolested
over them, and chasing the buffalo and the deer. Freedom, dear to all,
is the idol of the Indian. He worships the liberty of nature. When
restrained from his loved haunts, he pines, and sickens, and dies. Had
the Franciscans, like the Jesuits on the lakes, gone with their flocks
on their hunting-excursions, joined them in their feasts, and praised
them for their skill in the chase, they would have met with greater
success. But the Jesuits possessed a twofold advantage; they had the
power of dispensing with tedious and uninteresting prayers and
ceremonies; and they also enjoyed the aid of the cheerful, talkative,
open-hearted French; while the Franciscans, without such dispensing
power, were likewise bound to cooperate with the gloomy, suspicious, and
despotic Spaniards. We are not informed respecting the daily round of
spiritual and temporal duties performed by the converted Indians of the
Franciscan missions, but presume they were not very different from those
described by Father Marest as practiced among the Illinois in 1712. "
Early in the morning," says he, " we assemble the catechumens at
the church, when they have prayers, they receive instruction, and chant
some canticles. When they have retired, mass is said, at which
all the Christians assist, the men placed on one side and the women on
the other; then they have prayers, which are followed by giving them a
homily, after which each goes to his labor. We then spend our time in
visiting the sick, to give them the necessary remedies, to instruct
them, and to console those who are laboring under any affliction. In the
afternoon, the catechizing is held, at which all are present, Christians
and catechumens, men and children, young and old, and where each,
without distinction of rank or age, answers the questions put by the
missionary. As these people have no books, and are naturally indolent,
they would shortly forget the principles of religion, if the remembrance
of them was not recalled by these almost continual instructions. Our
visits to their wigwams occupy the rest of the day. In the evening, all
assemble again at the church, to listen to the instructions which are
given, to have prayers, and to sing some hymns. On Sundays and festivals
they add to the ordinary exercises instructions which are given after
the vespers. They generally end the day by private meetings, which they
hold at their own residences, the men separately from the women; and
there they recite the chapelet with alternate choirs, and chant
the hymns, until the night is far advanced."

If
to these duties we add the sacraments and confessions, we need not be
surprised that the neophytes sometimes fled from the missions, and
resumed the war-whoop and the chase. At the French missions among the
Indians, the apostates were won back by persuasion. Not so among the
Spaniardsl; the troops at hand pursued them, and, if taken, they were
compelled to return—when, in addition to a severe whipping, they were
obliged to do penance.

The Franciscan fathers made regular
reports of the success of their missions to the superior, and the latter
to the general of the order. On these reports depended to a great extent
the favor shown the missionaries; hence they were excited to zeal in
their efforts to make converts. Not content with the fruits of
persuasion and kind treatment, they made forays upon the surrounding
tribes. The soldiers performed this duty. The prisoners taken,
especially the young, were trained alike in the mysteries of the Roman
Catholic Church, and of agriculture. To effect their training, they were
divided among the older and more deserving Indians of the mission, who
held them in servitude until they were of an age suitable to marry. At
the proper time this rite was faithfully performed, and thus there grew
up a race of domestic Indians around the missions.

To add to the strength of the missions
and the number of the converts, reliable Indians of these establishments
were sent out among their wild brethren to bring them in. This was
sometimes done by persuasion, and sometimes by deception and force.
However, they were brought to the missions, and incorporated among the
learners and workmen of the fold.

When we call to mind the fanaticism and
ignorance of that age, and the important fact that the Indians who
remained long in the missions became greatly attached to their spiritual
guides and the form of their worship, we must admit that these pioneers
of religion deserved some praise. Their toils and privations evinced
their faith--their patience and humility should satisfy the world of
their sincerity.

The fate of the aboriginal races of the
New World, and even of the Pacific islands, is peculiar. A well-defined
instance of any tribe or nation that has been civilized, without a total
or partial destruction of its people, can scarcely be produced. This
may, to some extent, be attributed to the vices introduced by the
friends of the missionaries.

*However objectionable we may consider the Franciscan mode of
reducing the Indians, it is perhaps less so than the American plan
of depriving them of their lands, and then hunting them down like
wild beasts.

Indians Abused by the Peon or Peonage System

As much of the ill success of the
missions resulted from the regulations of the Spanish government in
regard to the Indians, it may be well that we should refer to them.
These regulations for the government and instruction of the natives of
Spanish America emanated from the "council of the Indies," and were sent
out for observance as laws sanctioned by the king. They were based upon
the conclusion of the council that all the people of the New World were
marked out by the inferiority of their minds for servitude, whom it
would be impossible to instruct or improve, except continually under the
eye of a master. Yet, as experience suggested the modification of these
regulations, they were so altered from time to time, until 1542, when,
by a decree of Charles V., the Indians were restored to a nominal
freedom. A tax, however, of one dollar each was levied upon all males
between eighteen and fifty years of age, three fourths of which went
into the royal treasury, and the other fourth was applied to the payment
of the salaries of local officers and parish expenses. They were also
subject to a certain vassalage, similar to the former tenure by service
in England. This vassalage consisted in the liability of the Indian to
labor a certain number of days for his patron or the king in the fields
or in the mines; and, although the time was limited in Mexico to six
days in the year, yet such was the distance of this degraded people from
the head of the government, such the disregard of the laws, and such the
cupidity and inhumanity of the patrons and agents of the crown, that the
term of service was generally evaded, and the Indians treated with great
cruelty. This labor was gratuitous; yet, in the meantime, the Indians
became debtors to their patrons, and were compelled to continued service
under pretence of payment; hence originated a species of servitude
called peonage. The peons increased to such an extent, that the patrons
made no objection to the abolition of the system of encomiendas;
for labor was so cheap, that it cost little or nothing.

Catholic Abuses of the Native Americans

In addition to the capitation-tax levied
from the Indians, they were subject to tithes, marriage-fees, and other
payments, drawn from them by the church. Still further, the Indians paid
large sums for the bull of Cruzado. This papal bull is published every
two years, and grants to the purchaser an absolution for past offences,
besides the privilege of eating certain prohibited articles of food
during religious fasts. The eloquence and zeal of the monks were
employed in the sale of these pardons, and, such was the credulity of
the people of Mexico, that few failed to purchase. The price varied from
ten dollars to twenty-five cents, according to the condition of the
purchaser and the privileges granted.

At the period of which we write, the
clergy of New Spain were inferior to that class in Europe, in both
morality and intelligence. With the exception of the Jesuits, and the
higher functionaries of the church, the entire clergy of Mexico were not
only destitute of the virtues necessary to their station, but were in
every respect profligate. Some of them, disregarding their vows of
poverty, turned merchants; others, forgetting their oaths of chastity,
indulged in the grossest licentiousness. It was in vain that the civil
authorities attempted to correct these abuses. The clergy held an
ignorant and credulous people under their control, and charged the
governors with hostility to religion. The church triumphed; and these
corruptions continued to increase, until the inhabitants of Mexico
ceased to venerate the monastic orders. It was then only that King
Ferdinand VI. promulgated his decree prohibiting the regular or monastic
clergy from taking charge of the parishes, but limited this right to the
secular clergy.

Pope Alexander VI., in 1501, granted to
the crown of Spain all the newly-discovered countries in America, on
condition that provision should be made for the religious instruction of
the natives; and Pope Julius II., three years afterward, conferred on
Ferdinand and his successors the right of patronage, and the disposal of
all church benefices. These grants of the popes, made at an early day,
constituted the king of Spain the head of the church, and gave him the
absolute control of its vast revenues. This fact is referred to here,
because of the influence it had in the revolutions of Mexico.

Such were the rules and regulations for
the government of the Indians, and such their condition, as also that of
their spiritual instructors, in 1715. Of course, these regulations could
not apply to wild Indians (Yndios bravos), but only to the
converted Indians (Yndios reducidos. The three classes of the
inferior or working clergy consisted of— curates, or parish-priests, in
the Spanish settlements; teachers of Christian doctrine, having charge
of those districts occupied by the converted Indians; and missionaries,
whose duty it was to go to the countries of the wild Indians, and, by
persuasion and other means, to bring them under the protection of the
government, and impart to them a knowledge of their Creator. The church
of New Spain, in other respects, was organized as that of the
mother-country, having its archbishops, bishops, deans, etc.

The missionaries, while engaged in
converting the wild Indians, were not unmindful of their own comfort and
that of the missions. The labor of the natives was employed in
agriculture, in raising stock, and in erecting large and convenient
edifices, by which means the fathers were not only enabled to live
agreeably themselves, but could extend the hospitalities of the missions
to travelers and friends.